Scratch a Pulitzer Prize winner, find a former Hallmark Card employee with a troubled past and a passion to write. Early on in this spirited handbook for beginners, Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb, 1986, etc.) introduces the concept of a palimpsest, a manuscript written on more than once, with the earlier writing perhaps still legible. Such are the rules of the game the author operates under in constructing this multifaceted work. On the surface sits a workmanlike narrative that offers solid advice on the craft of writing and covers all the important bases: motivation, voice, structure, research, and getting published. Rhodes teaches by example and in doing so shows he also knows how to sell: Within the first 100 pages he manages to plug or provide juicy paragraphs from eight of his published books and a work-in- progress. Beneath this discourse shines an anthology of meditations, poems, and anecdotes on writing by a menagerie of the gifted, including Anthony Trollope, Fran Lebowitz, Walt Whitman, and Sherwood Anderson. In the base layer of the book lurk the closet skeletons of Rhodes's psyche, revealed in a small handful of frightening autobiographical asides with which he somehow cannot resist shocking his pupils. When an early novel had trouble getting off the ground, suddenly his ``old flirtation with suicide returned.'' Similarly, comments about a ruined previous marriage and a painful childhood are presented with such matter-of-fact casualness during the course of instruction that one has trouble knowing just where and how to focus one's attention. Rhodes plainly states that anyone can write. But his subconscious seems to be whispering that it helps if you have suffered.
Pub Date: June 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-688-14095-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1995
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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